Coconut Rice Pudding With A Spiced Rum Sauce

I know some folk may have bad memories of cold, lumpy rice pudding, (I used to love the stuff out of a tin!) and these days I usually bake a lemon-scented version in the oven.  But I saw this stove-top recipe in a food mag recently (not an expensive one), ripped it out, and stashed it in my recipe folder (I have six folders full of recipes!) for another day.  Well, that day came:-) 

Not lumpy, but smooth and sweet, and very moreish.  We ate it hot, we ate it room temp., we ate it cold.  Always good.  Brings to mind a time our family went to dinner at another family's place.  They served pink custard with bananas for dessert; a lumpy, tasteless, pale-pink concoction with chunks of banana.  Now for one, I was lactose-intolerant (though we didn't know it then), warm milk or warm custard makes me want to throw up, and for two, bananas are a gluey, fibrous nightmare to me.  Yes, you can imagine the aftermath, my friends.  Not a pretty sight!

sweet and spicy pudding

Serves 6-8:

ingredients:

For the syrup:

150 mL (8 fl oz) spiced rum 

100g. (3.5 oz) muscovado sugar 

100g. (3.5 oz) raisins or sultanas - I used sultanas

For the pudding:

50g. (1.8 oz) butter 

150g. (5.3 oz) short-grain pudding rice - I used arborio

150g. (5.3 oz) raw caster sugar 

2 x 400 mL (13.5 oz) cans of coconut milk - see notes below

300 mL (10 fl oz) thickened cream (or coconut cream)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

The syrup:

Grab a large saucepan, and throw in the three syrup ingredients

Give it a stir, and heat gently on a low heat for five minutes, till the sugar is dissolved and you have plump little fruits

Put aside while you make the pudding

The pudding:

In goes the butter (same saucepan, no washing needed) on a medium heat

Melt the butter, then tip in the rice; give it a stir and toast till it just starts to go brown.  Don't worry if it's a little brown (mine was), as you just get a lovely caramelised flavour to the rice

Now you stir in the caster sugar, then add the milk, cream and vanilla

You bring it to a simmer, then cook on a looooow heat for forty minutes - you will need to stir it every five minutes or so; watch out in the last ten as it may start to stick to the pan

Add a wee bit more cream if it's looking too thick

To serve:  stir a third of the syrup into the pudding and serve with extra syrup over the top of the pudding

We had it room temp. and then cold the next day - equally good

Notes:

I made the syrup in the afternoon, and let it sit at room temp. till we had the pudding - delicious!

I've done a bit of coconut milk research lately.  Hard to believe the difference in brands.  The one in a carton had only 7.5% coconut extract!  I was horrified; over 90% was water.  I checked out various tins: the % of coconut extract ranges from 53% to 89%!  So buy carefully, my friends.  You get what you pay for.  I was very lucky to come across an organic coconut cream that is 100% coconut.  Yay!  I used one can of milk and one of cream, to add richness as I had bought one of the watery cans by mistake:-)

gather your syrup ingredients

simmer for five minutes

toast the rice till starting to turn golden

simmer for forty minutes, with the occasional stir

till it looks like this

a bowl for me

and a bowl for Mr P.

    artwork © Sherry's Pickings 

(Yep, I know.  My Kraken looks like a turnip!)